


I Love You, Sn0wman

by lucky_spike



Series: Stabdads [11]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Crack Pairing, F/M, Homestuck Kink Meme, Sexual Content, Stabdads AU, redrom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucky_spike/pseuds/lucky_spike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem was, she came to see as she continued thinking about it, she just couldn’t reconcile her memories of Spades Slick – Jack Noir, really – with her current impression of Spades Slick. Because he wasn’t that sarcastic little clerical jerk from all those years ago, not anymore. Now he was a harassed single parent with a casino empire and a modest crime ring. And he still had more piss and vinegar to him than any one person had any rights to, but raising Karkat had tempered it somewhat, made it less blatantly subversive and more just a facet of his overall ornery personality.</p><p>He was tolerable now. Or, worse, she ruminated, he was actually kind of funny.</p><p>Oh my God, she thought, I’ve started living in a romcom.</p><p>(carapace kinkmeme fill with humanstuck stabdads don't even ask because I don't know)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Council of Tailor

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Original Kinkmeme Request on Dreamwidth](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/4183) by Anon. 



> A fill for the Snowman/Slick redrom on carapace kinkmeme.
> 
> I don't even know what's happening here, please don't kill me. WHAT HAVE I DONE.

It was high summer – the kids’ last before they embarked on the wonderful and terrible journey that is High School – when Snowman finally realized her feelings about Spades Slick had gone soft over time. It was a startling realization, and one she didn’t really even notice developing until it presented itself at the forefront of her brain one afternoon, mid-way through watching _I Love You, Man_ with Itchy and Die. Once realized, though, it was like she couldn’t stop thinking about it – it was a fishhook, and the shimmering shark of her consciousness had leapt on with unbridled enthusiasm.

 _Ridiculous_ , she told herself, buffing her nails on her overcoat and inspecting the polish. _He’s a terrible little man_. Normally that would be enough. But it wasn’t, not today, and her gut twinged with anxiety at that.

He’d been her Archagent, back when she’d been the Queen and they’d both lived in Derse. Her husband had hired him, without even asking her, and she could remember how small he looked in that black-and-white uniform, skinny and sharp with such green eyes. They’d played nice and shook hands until the King left and then she’d seized the front of his uniform and jerked him close and told him in no uncertain terms that if he put a toe out of line, if he did a single thing she didn’t agree with, his life expectancy would promptly become much, much shorter. And the little bastard had _sneered_ at her.

She’d never really understood the concept of the kismesis until Jack Noir. Every single day she would get reports from him – the state of the kingdom, the condition of the people, the progress of the war with neighboring Prospit – and he’d sneer and smirk his way through them and every single time he’d finish with “I _do_ hope that suits you, your Majesty.” It was disrespectful and blatantly flaunting his position in relation to the monarchy and _God_ she hated him for it. What she hated even more was that he was _brilliant_ at his job and she knew that if she fired him (or, as would have been appropriate, had him executed) she’d never be able to replace him. At the time, the way things were going with the war, such action would have been preposterous.

She hated that the kingdom needed that snarky little Archagent.

And then he’d realized that the Kingdom needed him more than it needed her. By then their kismesissitude was sealed – the exact moment was probably a couple years prior, on his desk, after too much alcohol and a screaming match – and she only watched him as the car pulled away, taking her as far into the desert as half a tank of fuel would get you.

Her only thoughts while she wandered the dunes, falling on the occasional oasis or spring with delirious fervor, was how much she _fucking hated Jack Noir_.

The first time they saw each other after their exiles, she’d almost laughed. He was in some dingy bar with his Crew – she’d only remembered them by their names on Derse that time – and the Droll, Clubs now, spotted her across the room and waved, genuinely happy to see her again. Jack, Spades, whatever, spun around, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, just for a minute.

He only laughed for a minute before she put a bullet through his shoulder.

The worst part then was that as dingy and filthy and disgusting as it was, she’d _liked_ that bar. He was making a habit of getting her banned from places like that.

And the worst part now, she thought darkly, scowling at the TV while Itchy and Die remained oblivious, was that those memories _weren’t doing it_. She should hate him! He was Jack Noir, he got her exiled, he got her kicked out of that bar, he’d dogged her and teased her and mocked her fall from grace at every turn.

Her train of thought faltered. He _had_ , was the operative thing. And then those grubs had turned up in that dumpster – the kids – and suddenly they all had other things to think about and hating one another took a backseat. She and Spades would see each other and throw a few knives – was it for old times’ sake? _Oh, please tell me it wasn’t_ – but they both had places to be and shit to do that didn’t involve almost killing one another.

Of course, when the kids had gotten older she _had_ stabbed him in the eye and then basically ripped his arm off. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

She didn’t feel bad about it. _No, certainly not_. Oh God.

Someone was nudging her in the side. Itchy had his head to one side, eyes narrowed. “Something on your mind?”

“No,” she lied.

“Only I thought you said you liked this movie and you been glaring at it for the last twenty minutes.”

“I don’t like the lighting.”

He and Die exchanged a look. “Yeah, okay Snowman. The lighting is . . . it distracts from the artistic merits of Paul Rudd’s performance,” Die snickered. “Got it.”

“You can both shut up.” She settled back into the couch, arms crossed over her chest, cigarette smoldering.

The problem was, she came to see as she continued thinking about it, she just couldn’t reconcile her memories of Spades Slick – Jack Noir, really – with her current impression of _Spades Slick_. Because he wasn’t that sarcastic little clerical jerk from all those years ago, not anymore. Now he was a harassed single parent with a casino empire and a modest crime ring. And he still had more piss and vinegar to him than any one person had any rights to, but raising Karkat had tempered it somewhat, made it less blatantly subversive and more just a facet of his overall ornery personality.

He was tolerable now. Or, worse, she ruminated, he was actually kind of funny.

 _Oh my God_ , she thought, _I’ve started living in a romcom_.

She stood, abruptly, and excused herself. “I left the oven on.” Oh my God, she had used that one.

“Been baking?” Die asked mildly, eyebrows raised, feet up on the coffee table. “Banana bread for everyone later?” Itchy giggled.

“ _You_ aren’t getting any.”

“Tears, Snowman. All my tears,” he called after her. She ignored him. She needed to talk to someone, fast, before she went all _Sex in the City_ and called Slick and hung up the phone when he answered.

-()-

She spun out almost everything for Stitch, because the old man was the least involved with her on a day-to-day basis, and because she did genuinely like him. He listened to her as he fussed over the effigies and Lord English’s overcoat, pinning and stitching. Every once and a while he’d smile, or chuckle, which put Snowman off a little but she hadn’t been Queen for nothing. She carried on until she was satisfied that her story had been told, and then she sat back in a pile of discarded fabric and lit a cigarette.

“Well,” Stitch said through a mouthful of pins.

“Well?”

“Give me a minute.” One by one he stuck the pins into the overcoat and then he stood back, shaking his head. “Nightmarish monstrosity.”

“Stitch!”

“Not _you_.” He hobbled over to her and collapsed into his chair, picking up his cup of cold tea and glaring at the coat. “I tell him the coat isn’t his all-access pass to space-time, don’t make the continuum his personal playground, but does he listen? Of course not, he just skips off with that schmuck in the blue box. Feh!” He took a sip of tea. “Who needs ‘em.”

Snowman cleared her throat, as politely as she could manage. Stitch sighed. “I told you this would happen, didn’t I? Those two kids of yours, running around together, you and the man seeing each other all the time, I said to you, I said ‘Snowman, you keep meeting up with that meshugener, and you can kiss that kismessisitude goodbye,’ but did you listen?” He threw up his unoccupied hand and apparently addressed the ceiling. “Does anybody ever listen to Stitch? Everyone comes for advice and I tell them, I do, but nobody listens!”

“Yes, Stitch, and I was stupid not to listen but this is a problem.” She looked away and frowned. “I require council.”

He snorted. “Well fine then your majesty, council I can do.” He stared into space then, just for a minute, and took a gulp of tea. “Thing is, you and Slick . . . _you_ , really, were so used to everything being Jack Noir and the Black Queen, yeah? Now you’re just Snowman and Spades Slick and there’s no power dynamic in it anymore.” He shrugged. “It’s hard to hate someone when you can both just walk away from the situation, which I get the feeling you’ve been doing, hm?”

She looked to him sidelong and tapped the ash off the end of her cigarette. “Maybe.”

He shrugged. “And people change. See that effigy over there?” She followed his gesture to a discarded effigy, cast into the corner. “That was Crowbar’s. Now it’s schmatta, all because he went and got sweet on some girl.”

“That affects the effigies?”

“Everything affects the damn things.” He scowled at them. “Usually I can repair but matters of the heart are more difficult.”

Snowman got up abruptly, grinding her cigarette out on her chair absent-mindedly, deaf to Stitch’s complaints. She stalked around her own effigy, feeling her own hand around her waist, down her back. She looked around it to Stitch, wild-eyed. “It’s not new!” but her smile faltered when Stitch grinned, his scar pulling a little and reminding her of the last person in the world she wanted to think about. “How old . . . ?”

“Six months ago, just after Midwinter Solstice.” _Midwinter . . . shit. The scarf._ “Took you a while, I’m surprised.”

She laid her hands on her own shoulders and sagged with the phantasmal weight. “God I hate him.”

“I’d argue that at this point.”

She returned to the chair, brushed the ash onto the floor amidst the old tailor’s grumbling and fell into it, head in her hands. “What do I do, Stitch?”

He sighed loudly and grabbed his pipe off his desk, out of the piles of pincushions and miles of measuring tape. She waited for him to pack it, light it, and take the first few puffs. “Two options, the way I see it,” he said, before she had the chance to prompt him. “You find some way to keep the hate alive – and I don’t envy you that – or you give in and admit _maybe_ your kismesis can swap colors.” He blew a cloud of smoke and visibly winced as a large tear ran down the side of Lord English’s coat. “But what you’re hating now are just memories and that’s it. They’re too old.” He got up with some effort and a grunt, joints clicking. “Both of you have moved on with your lives – you’re not a Queen anymore and he’s not your clerk. Time’s a bitch.” He grabbed a pincushion and tape and crept over to the coat as quickly as his knees would allow. “Not that _you_ respect that you _schmuck_.”

“Lord English catches you saying that kind of thing and he’ll have you killed,” she mused, although she was much too absorbed in her own thoughts to pay attention to his answer.

“If he has me killed he won’t have anyone to fix his coat. I’m not worried.”

She leaned back. “So do I tell him?”

“Well I’m not saying we should tempt fate –”

“I’m talking about Slick, not Lord English.”

He rolled his eyes and shot her a look. “You do what you want! Might as well tell him because if I had to guess I’d say the schlemiel already knows! He liked the scarf, didn’t he?”

“He wore it.”

“Well there you go.”

“He did it out of spite.”

“To be fair, you did rip his arm off.” He dug around in his pocket for a spool of thread. “Can put a man off you, doing that kind of thing.”

She put her face in her hands, elbows propped on her knees. “I wish I hadn’t.”

“Feh!” He tugged at the rip in the coat and chuckled. “And he wore that scarf every day for the rest of the winter. You two haven’t hated each other for a while, Snowman.”

“. . . This is a disaster.”

“This is growing up.” She looked up, eyes wide, but his back was turned. “You don’t stop just because you’re suddenly a Queen, or an Archagent or a mobster or whatever society decides means you’re an adult. Or at least, you don’t want to. Can you imagine what a nudnik you’d be if you did? I told your daughter the same thing two weeks ago, by the way.”

“Which one?”

“The one that’s suddenly realizing she has feelings.”

“Ah.” Snowman stared at the floor for a while then. _People change, oh God how they change. You wake up one day and suddenly you can’t be bothered to hate the one person in your life you’ve always hated, and in fact you kind of like them._ “But then I won’t have a kismesis anymore.”

He waved blindly to her effigy. “Think again.”

Her brow furrowed. “Who – _Quarters_? It has to be! That smug jackass is my kismesis?” She pounded her fist on the arm of the chair. “That fucker! _God_ I hate him! How dare he? He wasn’t to know Slick and I –”

“Language, miss, please,” although he was trying not to laugh as he said it.

She jumped up again, grabbing her coat off the back of the chair. “Thank you, Stitch, for your advice. I’m going to go talk to Slick: maybe he’ll stab me.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Keep an eye on my effigy.”

“Oh, indubitably.” He watched her go and then shook his head, grinning despite the pins in his mouth. “Completely clueless, I don’t know how she does it.” As he finished the last few stitches, mending the tear, the overcoat’s sleeve detached from the rest of it with a violent shredding sound, and floated down to land on his head. “A broch!”


	2. In a romcom, we'd both be younger and vastly better looking.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sn0wman talks to Slick. I think we all can guess what happens next. NSFW.

The fact that Terezi was currently at Slick’s house made her trip there slightly more plausible, if anyone asked. Not that anyone did, except for Quarters, and she didn’t feel obligated to say anything to him, since she was currently furious with him. Instead, she stabbed him through the shoulder with her cigarette holder on her way out.

She smoked the entire way down to his house, lighting one cigarette after the other, casting the butts out the window with a sort of nervous prejudice against them, as if each and every one was responsible for her current predicament. She parked her car behind Slick’s, across the sidewalk, shoved the door open and strode up the steps, trailing smoke.

And then she lost her nerve, her hand halfway to the doorknob. This was stupid. He would still hate her, regardless, and while there was something satisfying about leaving him in an entirely unrequited kismesissitude, she knew that he didn’t hate her that much anymore. It was like Stitch had said: why bother, anymore, when they had other things to do? They could just walk away and get on with their lives. Every time.

Inside, someone was playing the piano. Her breath caught in her throat. It could be Karkat – he wasn’t bad himself . . .

No, that wasn’t Karkat. Not that loud, or that smooth.

She’d thought, last time they’d had sex, that there wasn’t a smooth curve to Spades Slick. She’d been wrong, she thought as she pushed the front door open so very, very quietly, and crept through his house. He thought in straight lines and right angles, his body was sharp and bony and lithe, but the music he played . . . it was like every pointed node in his existence had to be outweighed somehow. She paused in the kitchen, took a breath, and just listened. The notes swelled, surged forward through the whole house, the song was getting close to the end now. He was just pounding chords with one hand, but the other hand was creating a melody like honey and bourbon and smoke: nebulous and sweet and asphyxiating.

When it all came crashing to an end she just stood, eyes closed, leaned up against the wall. Some part of her was falling apart, while the rest of her was wondering what the hell she’d been thinking, hating him for this long. Christ, they didn’t even work together anymore.

 _Hating memories. This is stupid. You’re an idiot_.

Another song started, simple and almost eerie. She moved toward the room – the door was half-open, just wide enough for her to slip in – and listened as she stood there. His back was to her and he was just rambling over the keys, playing without much direction. This wasn’t a song that was established, it was something new, something half-finished. There would be a flurry of notes, chords and runs all banging together, and then it would be back to simple notes, one two, one two. Cautious, she slid into the room and skirted his field of vision – easy enough, especially with him distracted – until she got to the couch and perched there, on the arm.

 _Now if this really_ were _a romcom_ , a part of her mind supplied gleefully, _you’d forget yourself and start singing. So go on, Jennifer Aniston, it’s not even like the words are important_. She shook her head.

Evidently, the movement of that was enough to get his attention, although how she wasn’t sure, since she was firmly on his blind side. He spun around, surprised and then tense, lips drawing back from his teeth reflexively. “Hello, Slick,” she said, and she lit another cigarette to keep her hands from shaking. “Nice song.”

“The fuck are you doing in my house?”

She slid down onto the seat and blew a smoke ring, careful to keep her expression hooded. Even flustered, she would have been a pretty piss-poor Queen if she couldn’t have managed a decent poker face. “We need to talk.”

He sneered. “What about?”

 _Karkat and Terezi. Make something up._ “The kids.”

“Oh. What about ‘em?”

“They’re getting a bit old to be alone unsupervised, don’t you think?”

He looked at her askance then, and said slowly, as if speaking to a child, “The best part of them getting older is that you can let ‘em fuck off and not watch ‘em.”

“Your choice of words concerns me.”

“Huh? Oh.” He scowled. “Ah, shit, they’re not doing anything(1). They’re not old enough for that shit yet.”

“I beg to differ.”

 He leaned back against the piano, arms crossed. “So you go fucking babysit if you’re so concerned. Fuck, you and Droog should start a club.”

Snowman fought back a smirk. Terezi had filled her in extensively on Aradia and Sollux’s almost painfully supervised relationship. That Aradia hadn’t murdered her father out of sheer frustration yet was astounding. “I would hesitate to go to such, ah, extreme measures but I _do_ think it would be prudent to supervise them _slightly more_.”

“They’re supervised! I’m here, they’re up there!” he faltered. “Right?”

“No, I don’t believe they are.”

“Fuck.” He got up, fishing his hat out of the flotsam that covered his desk(2). “Probably at the fucking park.”

“Yes, they are. I saw them on my way over.” He stopped.

“Well why didn’t you –”

She sighed. “I didn’t really come over here to talk about Karkat and Terezi.”

He snorted. “Really.” He glanced to the desk. “You want some money? I think a lot of it’s fucking Scratch’s – we hit his vault pretty hard.”

She waved her hand. “No,” she said, just a shade too quickly. He noticed. “No. I wanted to talk about . . . About us.” There, that hadn’t been so hard. Or it wouldn’t have, if Slick’s expression didn’t slide into one that suggested he was pretty clearly considering the possibility that she’d utterly lost her mind. “Don’t give me that look.”

“Us,” he said flatly. “As in you. And me.”

“Yes.”

“They don’t do kismesis ceremonies, toots.” He scoffed. “As if I’d fucking even consent to be in one.”

“Oh _honestly_ , as if I’d be asking after that!” She took a breath, composed herself, took a drag off her cigarette. An idea bloomed, beautiful and perfect, at the forefront of her mind. She smiled, slow and lazy and not unlike a predatory cat. “After all, it would be impossible, since you are no longer my kismesis.”

He blinked. “What.”

“You heard me.” She blew a smoke ring. “You’ve been ousted.”

“By _who_?”

“Quarters.” Oh, it was perfect. Maybe Slick would shoot him in the face later and kill two birds with one stone.

“Fucking _Quarters_? That braindead gun-wielding fucking _mouth-breather_?” He threw his arms up. “You’re fucking dumping me for _Quarters_?”

“I don’t think you can ‘dump’ a kismesis, Slick.”

“Well it fucking _sounds_ like that’s what you’re trying to do!” He was in front of her then, leaning over her, taller for once.

“Don’t be stupid; I don’t want to dump you,” she blurted out, before her brain had the chance to parse and edit it.

“Well you can’t fucking have two,” he snapped. “There’s only room in that piece of shit quadrant for one of us.”

“I don’t want you in that quadrant anymore,” she said, quietly and then, to try and counteract how ridiculously soppy that had sounded, she blew a smoke ring in his face. He was frowning.

“You have some poor fuck in mind to auspitice?”

“No, Slick, you enormous idiot.” And, as he opened his mouth to say something about his ridiculous moirail, she grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him into a kiss.

“Nuergh,” he said. She bit him and he scrambled back. “ _What_.”

“Was I not clear?”

He pointed to her, opened his mouth once or twice, floundered around at the beginning of a sentence, and abruptly turned and plonked down on the piano bench, pounding on the keys somewhat tunelessly.

She slid in next to him. “What are you doing?” He didn’t respond, so she nudged him in the ribs, much to his annoyance. “Answer me.”

“Trying to fucking pretend that none of this shit ever happened!”

“Very mature.”

“You know what? _Fuck no_.”  His hands came to rest on the keys, and he spun, his finger pointing directly between her eyes. “No, I’m not fucking playing this game because I know what you’re trying to do, you manipulative bitch. You fucking took some body parts that I was _kind of_ fucking attached to and then we just played dumb about it because of the fucking kids and you know I didn’t even feel very fucking hateful at all a couple years later because it was just fucking _business_ but whatever, I could work some shit up, and _you_ kept right on kismesising or whatever the fuck you want to call it and _now_ you’re saying you want to do some other goddamned quadrant? _Fuck that_ I have put too much fucking energy into this goddamned kismesissitude.” He rambled down to a stop, almost panting, glaring up at her.

“Feel better?”

“Yes.”

“Hateful?”

He leaned forward onto the piano, the keys gloinking under his elbows, and put his face in one hand, demonstrating with the other hand. “Little bit.”

She slid an arm around his waist, and he didn’t pull away. “Just a little?”

“Ngh.”

“Me too.”

He sighed. “What a fucking disaster.”

“That’s what I said.” She let her head fall onto his shoulder. “Stitch said it’s because we’re maturing.”

“Fuck Stitch. The fuck he think we are, wines?”

“And that because we’re . . . equals, really.” He couldn’t look at her really, not off his left side, but he tried. “I piss you off, you piss me off, and we walk away. I can’t make you stay, you can’t do anything to be but get me kicked out of bars. There’s not really . . . there’s no reason for you to hate me. Or for me to hate you.”

“You still piss me the fuck off.”

“Same. Sometimes.”

“Yeah.” His ruined eye flinched tightly closed when she brushed her hand down his cheek, thumb lingering on the white cord of scar.

“I am sorry, you know.”

“I kind of guessed.” He leaned into her, sharp and warm and rough. “Well. Now what.”

“I don’t know.” She took a breath and was surprised to realize that he smelled . . . familiar. Usually there would be a sharp overlay of iron or black powder, but underneath it all . . . She sighed. “What a mess.” She poked at a few of the keys. “I suppose we could enact the Derse wartime procedure.”

He laughed then, quiet and low, almost a growl. “One fucking day at a time, huh?”

“Does it suit you, Spades Slick?”

 He pulled back a little, just enough to look up at her, and she could tell he was almost laughing. “Am I the jackass calling the shots now?”

“Weren’t you always?”

“Heh. Maybe.” He listened as she played a simple melody and then sighed, loudly, his shoulders sagging. “Yes it fucking suits me. Fine.”

She smiled then and played a little more, three chords, one right after the other. And then she started singing. “I hate the world today, you’re so good to me, I know but I can’t change –”

“That’s real fucking generous.”

“Tried to tell you but you look at me like maybe I’m an angel underneath –”

He snorted. “I never did.” But he played along anyway, and commentated as he liked, and she let him because he was very clearly enjoying it, even if the jokes were terrible and the puns were emesis-inducing.

They got as far as the second chorus before he gave up and started kissing her, bearing her back onto the piano bench and crouching over her.

“This – is –” she pushed him off herself and frowned “– so fucking uncomfortable.”

“Well fucking _move_ , then.” She laughed, and slid from the bench to the sofa, while he scrambled to the door and threw the lock. By the time he’d jiggled the bolt into place, she’d stripped off the coat and was reclining on the couch, legs crossed daintily. He pounced.

“You know,” he said, half-conversationally, even as she pulled his undershirt off, “this is a lot like – mm, fuck – one of Karkat’s fucking romcoms.”

Her back arched and she drew in a breath sharply as his hand trailed down her belly. “Funny you should say that. I – ah, left, Slick, and slower – I had the same thought.”

“That’s just really fucking embarrassing, really.”

“On the upside – oh God – you would probably be played by someone vastly better looking.” She twisted under him as he slipped inside her.

“And you – dammit, hang on – you’d be Jennifer fucking Aniston.”

She pulled him closer and they kissed for a moment, otherwise frozen. “I’m thinking, mm, Paul Rudd for you.”

“ _That_ mook?” He ran his hand through her hair, surprisingly gentle considering his entire right arm was some kind of steampunk Frankenstein creation.

“Vastly better looking,” she gasped, as she twined one arm around his shoulders. Her other hand clamped on his bony wrist. “Oh God.” And then she grabbed his shoulder. “Stop. Stop, Slick.”

“What?” Surprisingly enough, he did, although it clearly took some doing. “ _What_?”

She didn’t answer, instead guiding him around and shifting her own body so that in the end, after what was probably some very undignified wriggling, she was on top, her back a smooth dark arch over his skinny, ribby torso. “Much better.”

“I’m not –” he stopped because she was kissing him, her own sharp teeth nibbling on his lower lip, pulling back just a little, not enough to draw blood this time. “I’m not complaining.” His hands traced two lines up her sides to her chest.

“I never said you were,” she murmured, starting again, more slowly this time, in spite of his impatience. “Just relax.”

“Hah.” But, another surprise, he did try, even if he did sort of fail spectacularly at it. Her position, though, went a long way toward dictating pace, and he went along with it, not that he really had much choice. She slid gently up and down him, his back arching and his hips trying to follow her. They were kissing for a good deal of it, but eventually she settled her face into his shoulder and just breathed, her dark hair spilling out across his chest. He’d let his right arm fall clear of her – there was an element of distrust there, a wariness of the mechanism – and his other hand was hooked around the back of her neck, thumb tracing gentle circles just behind her ear.

“We’re idiots,” she half-whimpered, half-gasped, hardly controlling the rhythm anymore, her body taking it away without input from her brain.

“Yeah,” he grit out.

“We should – oh – should have done this . . . ages ago.” She gasped out a little breath, a tremble running the length of her back as his hips twisted _just so_ and his hand . . .

His hand slid under her chin and lifted her head to meet his eye. “Snowman?” he panted.

“Yes?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

She gasped, her eyelids squeezing shut. “Okay,” she moaned, before she fell into another kiss, careful and breathless, her mouth curling into a weak smile as shivers started to run up and down her back her hips still grinding down into his. She could feel him shaking, too; it wouldn’t be long now. “Okay.”

-()-

 

(1) This was a false statement. Terezi and Karkat were currently at the park, very busy under a bridge, crouched together with the little white tube of gel. Who knew superglueing coins to the sidewalk was so much fun?

 

(2) Paperwork, filing folders, and ten thousand dollars cash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue coming soon.
> 
> WHY.
> 
> WHY.


	3. Mutual Agreements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wrap it up wrap it up

They were sharing a cigarette and dozing when they heard the front door slam. She felt Slick’s eye twitch open against her neck. “Fuck.”

She blew a smoke ring. “You locked the door.”

“Yeah but the little shits are still gonna _know_.” He nuzzled closer to her neck. “Karkat wouldn’t fucking talk to me for a week last time.”

She glanced to him out of the corner of her eye. “So you’re going to sleep? How is that helping?”

“Denial.”

“Hm.” There was a pair of footsteps on the stairs. “They have to know I’m here – my car’s out front.”

“Maybe they think we fucking killed each other.”

“Optimist.” She propped herself up on her elbows and nudged him up. “They’re upstairs.”

“I heard.”

She slid off the couch and grabbed the nearest blanket, as well as her clothes. “Come on, then.”

“Huh?” She slid the lock back, carefully and quietly, and pulled the door open. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“ _Showering_ ,” she whispered, gesturing to the empty hallway.

“ _Oh._ ” He seized his clothes, blindly, and stumbled off the couch after her, the two of them sneaking the five feet to his room. “ _Bad_ romcom,” he snickered, after the door had shut.

“Shut up, Paul.”

“After you, Jennifer.”

They ran out of hot water halfway through, and Snowman would have loved to say that neither of them minded. But they were too old for sex in the face of frigid water, and so they frantically finished, Snowman fussing at him for his choice of shampoo through chattering teeth.

“Well if I’d had some fucking _notice_ ,” was all he’d managed, before he jumped out, seizing the nearest towel.

“As if,” she stepped delicately from the shower and grabbed another towel, “you would have gone shopping.” He seemed to think about it for a minute and then shrugged, and shouldered the door open.

They could take their time getting dressed this time, not like the last time, in the cramped confines of the front seat of her car. She would have dared to say that they both managed to look a great deal more presentable, too, and so she wasn’t worried when she finally stepped out of his room and started down the hall.

Terezi and Karkat were at the kitchen table. Waiting.

“I thought so,” Terezi said solemnly, hands folded together on the nicked-up wood surface.

“Ew,” was all Karkat managed, hunched over a bowl of macaroni and cheese. Snowman sighed.

“Well perhaps if you’d been where you were supposed to be,” she said severely. Slick appeared behind her and groaned.

“ _Again_?”

“Ew.” Karkat asserted more loudly this time, pointing at Slick with his fork.

“Don’t act like this is _our_ fault,” Terezi said haughtily, sitting up and crossing her arms. “Besides, you _knew_ we were at the park, Mom.”

Snowman just lit another cigarette. “Terezi, Slick and I are adults.”

“EW.”

“Shut the fuck up, Karkat.”

“We can do what we want,” Snowman went on, choosing to ignore Karkat and Slick as they devolved toward a confrontation. Whatever they had to work out, they could damn well do it on their own time. “We’ve had this discussion.” She stepped forward and put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “And now we are going home.”

“But –”

“But nothing, Terezi.” She steered the girl to the front door, smirking back at Slick over her shoulder. He had his metal hand braced against Karkat’s forehead as the troll flailed at him, his other hand in his jacket pocket. “Until next time, I suppose.”

He shrugged. “Later.”

“I hope you don’t mean later _today_ –”

“ _Terezi_.” Her admonishment held until they were in the car and backing off the sidewalk, and then Terezi spoke again, leaning over the front seat.

“Mom, I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“You and Slick aren’t kismesises anymore, are you?”

She looked to her daughter sidelong, eyes widened just slightly in surprise. “Who told you that?”

“No one. Karkat and I figured it out.” Her grin was broad, triumphant. “I knew it,” she sing-songed. “I knew it I knew it I knew it.”

“ _How_?”

Terezi flopped back into the backseat, ticking points off on her fingers. “Well, you hardly every fight with each other anymore, when you do get together you’re sort of friendly, you got each other _presents_ at the Solstice and yeah they were passive-aggressive jabs but _still_ and you have more or less teamed up to keep me and Karkat from turning into degenerate teenage wastes.” She flipped her hair, not unlike her sister in that moment. “I _knew it_.”

“Have you been talking to Stitch?”

“No but I’m glad you finally did!” She sniffed. “ _Please_ , mother, it was mind-bogglingly obvious. Even _Karkat_ noticed.”

“Does your sister know?”

“Does it directly concern her?”

“Good point.” She sighed. “Tell no one, Terezi.”

“Not like I’m gonna have to.”

“ _Terezi_.”

The girl looked at her in the rearview mirror, as shrewd as a thirteen year-old could be. “You know my price.”

Snowman rolled her eyes, sighed theatrically – more for Terezi’s benefit than anyone else’s – and swerved off down a side-street, toward the little back-alley ice cream parlor that did the cherry-flavored custard with the waffle cones. Terezi beamed. “I believe we’ve reached a mutual agreement.”

**Author's Note:**

> WHY
> 
> JUST
> 
> *rubs hands on face*
> 
> WHY IS THERE MORE THAN ONE CHAPTER


End file.
